Non-patent literature 1: APIX Industrial Standard connectivity for industrial applications, White Paper, October 2009, Version 1.0, By Markus Römer, Inova Semiconductors, GmbH
In a vehicular apparatus, a reduction of the number of cables connecting an ECU (electronic control unit) with a sensor or an actuator may lead to a reduction of a fuel consumption of a vehicle or may reduce cost. PLC (power line communication) transmitting communication through a power wire may be well known to reduce the number of cables.
As an example of PLC, Power over APIX disclosed in non-patent literature 1 is known. The Power over APIX communicates one on one between a transmitter and a receiver. The Power over APIX cuts DC components in the power wire by an AC coupling to receive a communication signal, and cuts the communication signal with an inductor to obtain power. Thus, the Power over APIX enables to perform communication so that a power source and the communication signal are prevented from affecting each other.
The inventors of the present disclosure have found the following.
In a vehicular apparatus, one ECU corresponding to a master may control multiple slaves such as a sensor, an actuator, or the like generally. In this case, when the Power over APIX is used in the above control mode, one ECU and multiple slaves are separately connected so that a wiring may be redundant and many communication ports should be prepared in the ECU.